hand pain

There are many fine physical therapy clinics in the Olympia, Tumwater and Lacey area. How do you chose where to go?

You can choose based on location. A friend of mine told me today she chose to go to physical therapy at a clinic close to her house. What would prompt a close choice versus reputation? Maybe she needed to go 2 or 3 times per week. If someone needs to go to PT 2 or 3 times a week for a month or so, then going close to your house would be very convenient, HOWEVER, ask yourself the question: does your condition warrant 2 or 3 times per week?

Recently a former patient returned for a new session of physical therapy. She is a fairly frail 80 something year old, and was sent for BOTH headaches AND shoulder pain by her physician. Her prescription from the physician was directed to be 2 to 3 times per week for 4 to 6 weeks. She may have thought she needed to come that often, but…….when I evaluated her headache AND shoulder pain, I determined that both problems were mainly caused by the same anatomical structure.

I gave her an exercise program based on this one problem, and added customized and specific exercises for the shoulders and neck. As of Friday (January 30) 100% better in the headache and 75% better in the shoulders. She came for 6 visits at 1 x per week.

So the bottom line is, unless you actually NEED to have therapy 2 or 3 times per week consider going somewhere that uses less visits more effectively and you may save yourself some time and money.

The therapists at Comstock Physical Therapy, Joyce Mills, Lori Waterman and Linnea Comstock have extensively studied the body to make our exercise programs very effective and efficient. Give us a call if you would rather go to PT once per week instead of three times a week!

I go to my doctor and get pain medications yet the pain returns. I go to a health care practitioner and feel somewhat better, get a standard protocol for certain exercises, or some other treatment, then my pain returns.

Why go to physical therapy? Can’t I just buck up and do exercises myself and get better? Won’t going to a gym and lifting weights fix the problem?

Let’s take a look:

The lady above is coming for elbow pain on the left and thumb pain on each hand. You may be wondering why I took a picture of her shoulder blades and middle back? The answer: her shoulder blade muscles are the “core” of her arms and their position and movement pattern, if bad, will strain the arms. She may not know how to make sure the “core” shoulder blade muscles are strong and how to stretch the tight muscles that pull the shoulder blade down and out.

Let’s look at her elbows (the pictures below are of someone different who looks like her due to Comstock PT not wanting to expose her face):

bent elbow

bent elbow posture

The elbows are bent and forearms twisted in, which is straining her outer forearm muscles and rotating her wrists and thumbs in. (see below)

The thumb muscle that is causing pain for her comes from the forearm, up by the elbow and twists down by the thumb. When the forearm is turned in and elbow bent, it strains the thumb and forearm muscles causing both forearm and thumb pain.

To fix the thumb and forearm pain and keep it gone, a holistic approach to the whole arm and shoulder blade system is needed to reduce the strain and help the arm improve. Why go to physical therapy to have this treated? To get the holistic treatment and get fixed!